Dont have a rags-to-riches story? Three methods to display your coaching abilities without a rags-to-riches story.

Hi everyone, Shikah here. Today we will be discussing whether a rags-to-riches story is necessary for you to sell your courses or to sell your services as a coach.

At the end of this episode, you will have 3 techniques you can use to boost your credibility as a coach if you don’t have a dramatic rags-to-riches past.

Before we start, I want to mention that I have a done-for-you Confidence Workbook which you sell on your coaching website. It is fully customisable with Canva so you can make it your own. I have written the text and content for you so you don’t have to think what to offer to your clients or community this week.

It’s a workbook, but you can repurpose it to be a blog post, or a high value lead magnet to get more subscribers. Or offer it during your coaching sessions and save so much time and money. I will place the link here and you can check it out if this is something you need.

Alright, let’s get back to this topic. If you have been listening to podcasts, you would realise that many big-name coaches have a rags-to-riches story.

I came across one money coach who said that was living in the front seat of her car with $10 in her pocket before she started her business.

I came across another one who said that her mother was a drug dealer and she had an abusive father.

I also came across another manifestation coach who said she was living on her grandparents’ couch whilst launching her business.

So you may be wondering, firstly, why do these coaches tell these stories of their past? And what if you do not have a rags-to-riches story?

What if you have an average middle income family background? What if you come from a privileged background? Does that mean that your coaching has less value?

Frankly you don’t need a rags-to-riches to be a successful coach. However, I understand the some coaches want to prove to people that they overcome many difficulties and hence, their coaching is very powerful.

That’s why they bring our focus to their difficult past. These coaches may also be targetting a group of people who have the same type of challenging life.

This is an unpopular thing for me to say, but it may be eye-opening for you to know this. I have attended business seminars in the past. And the business coaches will literally encourage business owners to come up with some rags-to-riches story.

They will ask you to dig deep into your past, recall something that made you feel grief or some other similar emotions. And literally write your rags-to-riches story on the spot. Because in business, emotions sell. So the logic is that, if you can evoke emotions in people, you are going to sell more.

This is one reason why coaches like to draw your attention to their ‘troubled’ past. Another reason is because they want to prove to people that their coaching techniques work.

However, this is ironic, but people may be more drawn to you if you have a more average, non-drama background. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do feel that many people do not have dramatic childhoods.

There are a great many of people out there who have mundane, almost uneventful past. There is no need for you to dig up or worse, write a fake rags-to-riches story simply to show your coaching worth or play with people’s emotions.

You can own your past even if there is nothing dramatic about it. Being authentic is a fresh direction to take in business. So how can you showcase or display your coaching abilities without resorting to dramatic stories?

I will share 3 techniques with you.

Technique #1 to display your coaching abilities without a rags-to-riches story

Think of a time you have overcome a challenge in the past which relates to your coaching expertise. If you are a self love coach, you can share a time when you overcame a self-love issue for yourself or help others do the same.

Do take note that even overcoming a small challenge counts because let’s face it, we face small challenges everyday. If you can share with your clients how to,say, make wise decisions in 3 steps for example, people can relate to that.

Technique #2 to display your coaching abilities without a rags-to-riches story

Check and see if you have any related certifications. You don’t necessarily have to take long courses or a degree program for this. Perhaps you can even take short courses which give out certifications.

I think certifications are very helpful even though we have seen many coaches claiming that they have made 6-figure years without certifications.

Usually, we need to put in some hard work and effort to get through even a short course, so it’s a good thing to do for us to gain knowledge and get certs to our name.

Certs are a tangible representation of someone who continually upgrades themselves.

Technique #3 to display your coaching abilities without a rags-to-riches story

Consistently show up on YouTube videos, podcast episodes or other types of video content. The keyword here is ‘consistently’. Perhaps uploading a video every week or go ‘live’ on Instagram every week or so.

Videos are obviously the fastest way for you to gain trust, respect and show your expertise to the world. There are instances where I have gained so much knowledge from listening to someone on just two podcast episodes, that I was ready to buy her mid-priced course.

Well if you are new, YouTube is a good option for you because your videos will show up on people’s ‘suggested’ videos even if they are not subscribed to you. YouTube is a great way to get fresh views and for people who don’t know you to know you.

I have so many coaching tips to share with you so that you can get inspired and motivated about your business.

You can join my email list of 9000 coaches and I usually email a few times a week with coaching tips to help you with your business.

I’ll see you in my next video and take care. Bye!

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How to deal with stressful moments as a coach and entrepreneur (4 journaling prompts to calm the mind)

Hi I’m Shikah. Today we are discussing how to deal with stressful moments as a coach and as an entrepreneur. I will be sharing 4 mindset prompts which can change your perspective fast and calm yourself when something unwanted happens right smack in your business journey.

At the end of this post, I hope that you will find these mindset prompts very useful and use them on yourself when you hit stressful moments in your business.

Before we start, I want to share that I have a done-for-you Overcome Stress masterclass which you can conduct with your clients. I’ve done all the work for you. I’ve written 80 slides for you, I have written the workbook for you as well as the script. So all you need to do is launch it.

This will help you save so much time and energy because I have experience in counselling, so my done-for-you coaching products have more depth.

I know AI is all the rage right now, but I create materials using my own research, my own observations and experience.

If this is sounds interesting to you, you can click here to learn more about my done-for-you Stress masterclass.

Let’s go back to today’s topic. Well, we all define ‘stressful moments’ differently. If you are a smaller business owner like me, you are going to worry about different things as compared to a 7-figure business owner.

I feel that it is best not to judge other people’s definition of ‘stress’ because we all have different life experiences, we are at different stages of self-growth, some of us are more sensitive to stress than others. That’s why it’s a very humbling practice to be open and not belittle other people’s business problems.

I say this because 3 years ago I followed a solopreneur in the past who was used to pulling 7-figure launches. She was clearly successful in her field. And there was one launch where she only earned $400,000.

She went into a full blown panic attack mode. I remember that she had to literally lie down and do deep breathing exercises to literally calm her nervous system down.

As a newbie in business at that time, I didn’t understand it. I was thinking “She is earning $400,000! That is more than the average American or the average person on the planet, I dare say.”

But as the years pass, I developed more compassion for other business people and their unique problems. I’m not saying I am at her level. But problems and suffering are relative.

Also, when someone starts earning more money, it’s natural for them to upgrade their lifestyle. It’s human nature for many of us to desire more. To maintain such lifestyles will require money.

And one more thing, big businesses usually have staff to pay and retain. So their problems are going to be different from my small solopreneur problems.

I’m digressing a little bit. Nevertheless, when you are facing a stressful moment in business, it is very helpful to quickly get perspective and remind ourselves that life is much larger than our business.

Life is also about self-growth and I believe that running a business is like taking a crash course in personal growth. Our mental blocks and our limiting beliefs just show up over and over again until we resolve them.

So how can we deal with stressful moments in business?

There are various ways - some people like to take a ‘external’ approach and reach out for external things and activities to handle stress. Such as reaching out for certain kinds of food, hobbies or doing certain exercises.

Another approach is to take an introspective approach to stress.

To do this, I will share journaling prompts with you to reflect on.

How can you use these prompts when you are under stress?

You can choose to set a timer for 5 minutes and write your answers down non-stop on a piece of paper. Or you can record a video of yourself answering these prompts.

1. Mindset prompt #1 to deal with stressful moments as an entrepreneur: “What lesson did I learn from this stressful episode?”

This is a cliche question but every challenge and problem presents an opportunity for us to learn something. For example, as much as it is difficult for us to think that facing difficult clients is an ‘opportunity’, it actually suggests to us to start looking for a different type of clientele.

If you launched a course and it flopped, perhaps you need to tweak your launch process, or offer courses which people actually want. There is a lesson in every problem or challenge if we look for it hard enough.

2. Mindset prompt #2 to deal with stressful moments as an entrepreneur : “How have I grown as a person after facing this problem?”

As an example, if your sales dropped by 50% this year compared to last year, it can be very disheatening. You may start doubting yourself, your business and even your own judgment.

One way to look at this with perspective and feel calmer is to see how you have become a ‘better’ version of yourself after this problem.

If your sales have dropped drastically, you may feel horrible about yourself, but you may have adapted and grown to be someone who is more grateful for small things in life.

Or you may have grown to be someone who spends money more consciously with that drop in income. Your identity is fluid. Once you earn more, you will grow again as a person and your identity may change again.

3. Mindset prompt #3 to deal with stressful moments as an entrepreneur : “How does this problem highlight what I actually want?”

Using the previous example, if your business income has dropped by a lot and you feel very disappointed by it, it is a simple reflection that you enjoy earning more. You may want to journal why earning more is important to you.

Is it because you want to maintain your lifestyle? Does earning more make you feel validated? Is your self-esteem tied to your earnings? If this is the case, what you actually want is more self-acceptance and more self-worth, not more money directly. If you dig deeper, you will discover your genuine needs and desires underneath every problem or challenge that you go through.

4. Mindset prompt #4 to deal with stressful moments as an entrepreneur : “How can I turn this problem into an opportunity?”

This prompt is not straightforward. You may have to do some brainstorming to see how you can spin this problem be a golden opportunity for you.

For example, if your clients are not renewing their contracts with you, you can use the extra energy that you have to research or create a new offer.

If AI is taking over your business, you can brainstorm to see how you can make your work unique and stand out even more in the sea of AI generated content out there.

My favourite way of transfroming a problem into an opportunity is to share the event with my 9000 email subscribers. When you share your ups and downs with your community, you connect with them emotionally and they remember you.

Connecting emotionally with your followers is very powerful because people remember how you make them feel validated, motivated, inspired.

So if you want to be part of my email list of coaches, you can sign up here. I share mindset and coaching content ideas via email which you can share with your community. Just click here to join my mailing list.

That is all I have to share with you today.

I’m curious to know which of the 4 prompts you like best?

You can leave a comment if you wish.

Thank you and I will see you next time.

Shikah

How to make better business decisions (as a coach or entrepreneur)

Today, we are discussing how we can make probably the best decisions in business - or in any aspect of our lives - using a value scoring method.

I hope that after reading this, you can make some of the best decisions in your life or business which align with your values. Before we start, I would like to share that I have a done-for-you Discover Your Purpose workbook which you can share with your clients and your community. I will put the link in the description box.

You can sell this workbook in your shop, you can use the exercises during coaching sessions or even create your own course using the exercises in this done-for-you workbook. It saves you so much time especially because we all know it takes so much energy to research, write and design a workbook from scratch.

And I write my materials using my counselling experience, so the exercises have more depth than an AI generated workbook. You can save your time and go enjoy your life or spend more time coaching your clients - whatever rocks your boat. And also feel free to like or rate this episode if you like it!

Anyway, back to the topic at hand!

If you gravitate towards this blog post, I am going to make a safe guess that you may be at a crossroads, you may be confused whether to pursue another business idea or add a new offering, whether to expand your niche or maybe you are debating whether you should take a break from your business.

When you are confused about a decision, you may have resorted to surfing through forums like Reddit, asking other people for their input and advice, reading books and blog posts to help you make decisions.

Or if you are more spiritual, you may have also done meditation practices or other practices which allow you to touch on your intuition or other things like automatic writing or other esoteric practices to get your answers. If you are an overthinker, it is not new for you to go through all sorts of methods to get answers to your questions and help you make decisions.

I love all these methods but you may want a more grounded method to make better decisions regarding your business.

Listening to other people’s opinions may not be the best move, considering that everyone has their own set of beliefs which they may project on you.

It is alright to keep an open mind when listening to advice from others, but you also have to have a firm grip on your own values and preferences if you want to make decisions which truly make you happy.

What about the traditional ‘Pros and cons’ list?

I’m going to guess that we all have written a ‘pros and cons’ list before. It is a very logical way of making decisions. One thing to take note of: it does not take into account of what makes you happy.

Just because Decision A has 5 pros and 1con does not automatically mean that it’s a good decision. Especially if that one ‘con’ makes you dread that decision very much. So what is arguably one of the best ways to make a decision?

I’ll share the 3-step method with you now. I call it the Value Scoring Method.

Step 1 of how to make better business decisions : Correctly identify your genuine core values.

I am going to emphasise the word ‘genuine’ here. For example, if you are someone who values ‘wealth’, you may feel the need to not admit it to yourself because society in general does associate wealth with greed and other negative things.

One of my top values in life is ‘fun’ and I used to find it difficult to admit that because fun is seen as frivolous and a ‘useless’ value.

But after going through my counselling trainings in the past (I used to work as a counsellor), we learnt that fun is a very important human need. As much as fun, beauty and entertainment get a lot of flak as being ‘unimportant’ in society, these elements raise the frequency of the planet. And happy individuals are loving, kind and compassionate.

Anyway, for this step, I want you to be as honest as possible with yourself.

If you find it uncomfortable to admit that one particular value is valueable to you, you may need to do some shadow work surrounding it. So, I am going to need you to be authentic and genuine in this exercise.

You can set a timer for 5 minutes on your phone and write down as many of your core values as possible. You can do a quick Google search for suggestions if you wish.

If you need a convenient suggested list of values, this can help:

Freedom, fun, ambition, fairness, family, excellence, honesty, authenticity, belonging, sense of community, courage, creativity, efficiency, generosity, health, harmony, integrity, kindness, love, loyalty, recognition, responsibility, discipline, wealth, human connection, security, friendship, peace, consistency, diligence, simplicity, alturism, inner peace,

At the end of 5 minutes, you may have 10, 20 or 30 values listed - the more, the better.

Step 2 of how to make better business decisions : Narrow down and choose your top 5 values

You can look at the list of values you have written, I want you to choose and circle 5 of your topmost values. Again, let’s bear in mind to be honest and authentic with ourselves. This should be a straightforward exercise. Give yourself some time to choose 5 values which mean the most to you.

Step 3 of how to make better business decisions : Write the decisions you are confused about on a piece of paper and give them a score from 0 to 5

I will explain this further. If you are confused between two decisions, write both decisions down. If you are confused about 3 decisions, write them down. What you are going to do next, is to give each decision a score.

If Decision A meets 4 of your 5 topmost values, it gets a score of 4 out of 5. If Decision B meets 2 out of your 5 topmost values, it gets a score of 2 out of 5. I think you get the drift.

So with this step, you will instantly uncover which decision aligns with your values the most. It is, thus, safe to choose the decision which has the highest score.

This Value Scoring Method is a simple way to make better decisions in business if you need a grounded, practical method which also honours your likes and dislikes.

If I want to go deeper into the complexities of decision making, I can do so, but I choose to share a method which is easy and works well.

If you want to share this method with your clients and help them make very good decisions, you can get my done-for-you Discover Your Purpose workbook. This value scoring method is included in that coaching workbook.

If you like my work, you can download a free Discover Your Clients’ Innate Talents coaching tool from my blog. It is a straightforward exercise which helps them to uncover their talents and gifts in a snap.

That is all for today and take care.

Shikah

3 signs you are a highly sensitive coach or business owner (and what to do about it)

I've always known that I'm a sensitive person and as much as I cringe to admit that, it's a fact that I have accepted.😄

Well, much of society still views sensitivity as a flaw or weakness. But in essence, sensitivity simply means that your nervous system is easily stimulated.

From my observation, there are 3 characteristics which are common for sensitive people in general.

#1. You have relatively low energy levels. You get drained easily, your energy levels vary drastically throughout the day, and you need to 'decompress' after socialising or meeting people and clients.

This happens because sensitive people tend to pick up and absorb other people's energy and emotions subconsciously. This means our brains are processing all these unnecessary information all the time. Is it mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting? Yes, very.

#2. You overthink alot. We sensitive people think too much sometimes. We are always trying to put ourselves in our audience's shoes, we are afraid of offending our audience and I have also seen business owners who feel hurt when people unsubscribe from their email list.

The good thing about overthinking is that, your work is usually of pretty good quality because you pay attention to detail. The downside is that we may take a long time to launch courses and workbooks because we think too much!

#3. You can't bulldoze your emotions. If you don't have the mood or motivation to do something, it's almost impossible to do it 😂. A task which usually takes 15 minutes can take you 5 hours if you are pushing yourself to do it when you are 'not feeling it'.

Talking about emotions, some of the less sensitive business owners have no issues sending 10 'last chance' emails on cart-close day.

It may annoy some of their subscribers but if sending 10 emails in one day results in good sales, they have no problem just focusing on their sales goal.

Like one obviously less-sensitive copywriter said in a recent course I took : "Screw other people's nervous systems." 😂

Some of them can promote their services relentlessly and tirelessly every single day and I admire their tenacity for that.

If you are a more sensitive person, obviously you may not feel comfortable with these strategies.

But you can run your business in a way which supports your nature.

If you identify as a sensitive person, you may notice that you need to set up routines and habits to thrive in a society which generally celebrates 'being strong' and views sensitivity as a 'weakness'. 😄

So, how can you thrive if you are a sensitive coach and business owner?

Let me share 3 ways which work for me to balance my sensitive nature + be productive.

#1. Introspective activities + alone time. You may realise that you need a lot of alone time to recharge your energy levels after socialising or even after being out and about.

Journaling, time to reflect and reconnect with our intuition are crucial for us sensitive people to be out best selves.

Sensitive people absorb other people's energies subconsciously all the time and it weighs down on us psychologically and emotionally.

#2. Creating your own high-vibe cocoon. I personally do this by sticking my Airpods in my ears whenever I am commuting or out and about. 😂

Everyone has their own preferences, but I like playing my favourite upbeat pop songs to keep my mood and frequency high when I'm out.

This is not done to block people out. 

But it can be done to intentionally create a high-vibrational bubble around us.

As a sensitive person, you can easily pick up people's shifts in facial expressions, people's energy and people's emotional states if you commute in silence.

Listening to upbeat music, an uplifting podcast episode or audiobook can train us to focus on more positive things and reduce having our energy unintentionally sapped by other people's denser energies.

#3. Consume uplifting content. If you are a sensitive person, you may react strongly to even the 'smallest' things.

Hence, you may need to be very intentional about the content you read, watch or listen to.

If watching graphic videos of children suffering in other parts of the world, footage of people being shot, horror movies - you get the idea - affects you psychologically and emotionally, obviously, this habit is not helpful for your well-being.

I know someone who had to temporarily uninstall Instagram on her phone because she kept coming across videos of children suffering in another part of the world and it affected her far too much.

Social media is like second nature to many of us, and we can underestimate the effect that less-than-positive content can have on our psyche.

What about you? Do you identify as a highly sensitive business owner?

If so, which is your favourite method to help you thrive?

Let me know!

Shikah

How to Create a Self-Care Plan for your Coaching Clients (with Free Self-Care Assessment Template)

If your clients are like most people, they can intuitively sense when their self-care is out of balance, but may not know how to start their self-care habits in an effective manner.

This confusion, coupled with a busy or demanding lifestyle, can equate to them procrastinating any form of self-care until something more dire happens - such as burnout or becoming unwell.

Creating a personalised self-care plan tailored to their needs is the first step they can take to feel empowered, reduce stress and possibly prevent burnout.

If you want a step-by-step outline on how you can create a self-care plan for your coaching clients, you may want to continue reading.

Step 1 : A self-care assessment or self-care audit

This step is crucial because it highlights the specific self-care needs which may have been unintentionally neglected whilst your clients are busy pursuing their goals.

Creating an assessment of any kind can be a daunting task even for experienced coaches as it requires thorough thought and insight.

I have used my insight and experience derived as a former counsellor to help create a 25-question self-care assessment for you.

Use this self-care assessment template during coaching sessions or even as a free opt-in freebie for your coaching blog (to get more subscribers).

Step 2 : Create self-care goals for each self-care category (there are 5 main categories)

Goals should ideally be specific and realistic. After completing this free assessment, you can then nudge your clients to create 3 self-care goals for each of these categories :

• physical self-care

• emotional self-care

• spiritual self-care

• social self-care and

• mental self-care

Step 3 : Create a personalised Self Care Menu

A self-care menu is a fun spin to simply creating a list of their favourite self-care activities.

Your clients’ Self-care Menu can be in the form of a mindmap, a table, a calendar or a simple bullet-point list if they prefer a minimalist style.

This Self-care Menu should ideally include at least 20 activities which offer mental peace, joy, relief or a feeling of expansiveness and gratitude to them.

This Menu should be personalised to their needs and if they need ideas, they can choose to reflect on activities they have done in the past which offer them feelings associated with self-care.

Examples include spending time with supportive people, introspective activities such as journaling, participating in active meditations or going for therapy.

Step 4 : Intentionally schedule activities from the Self Care Menu into a weekly planner

Some of us have the perception that self-care activities do not need to be scheduled. I beg to differ.

When your clients schedule self-care activities into their week, they have a higher chance of committing to them.

This is especially true if they have a demanding career or a fast-paced lifestyle. Their self-care needs may just fall to the wayside in favour of more ‘productive’ work-related activities or they may choose easy, passive activities such as bingeing on a TV series.

You may want to encourage them to schedule self-care activities which actually enrich their lives, bring them joy, energise them mentally and emotionally or activities which create pleasant memories.

Step 5: Helping your clients balance success with self-care

Which self-care needs are your clients likely to neglect when they are experiencing a busy or stressful period in their lives?

You may encourage them to list them down.

For example, they may neglect their sleep, exercise, meditation or hobbies when they are actively pursuing their goals.

You may ask them these questions or even create a worksheet with these questions:

1. “Which self-care needs do you usually neglect when you are busy?”

2. “What does it feel like to neglect these needs?”

3. “What may happen if you choose to continue ignoring this self-care need?”

4. “What is one small action step you can take to pay attention to this self-care need?”

Want to offer and sell a Self Care Masterclass to your coaching clients?

You can choose to conduct a 60-minute masterclass to teach your clients how to create their own self-care plan.

If you want to launch + sell your own 60-minute Create your own Self Care Plan masterclass, you can get this done-for-you masterclass.

I wrote this masterclass using my experience and insight as a former counsellor working in a government ministry.

With 80 fully written, fully-designed slides, a workbook and a fully-done script, you can launch your own masterclass practically overnight (or sooner ;)).

I hope this has been helpful for you in some way.

Take care,

Shikah